World Cup 2006 News

This weeks photo of the weekend shows the Brazilian trainings camp. Roberto Carlos was practising his free-kick skills when this little accident occured. Give him some credit tough he has done better before you know. [Credit]

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The World Cup train keeps on rolling. Today we have another friendly day - 6 exactly. Ok, one might say friendlies are boring because it doesn´t really matter if you lose and nobody really celebrates if you win so why the heck should I get excited about such a game? The answer is quite simple. Those are the last test games of the World Cup contestants and you might get a good overview on how good the teams really are. Read more

Here are today´s World Cup shorties you might wanna check them while you´re waiting for the opening match to start.

- do you have you goalfinger sharpened? check out the equally named BBC Trivia on the World Cup
- not enough time wasted yet? here´s another game
- and last but not least - surprise - another game, seems to be game-sunday

Now, let´s get serious.

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Germany´s new number 1 goalkeeper Jens Lehmann is keen on playing on after the World Cup. In a SPIEGEL interview earlier this week he claimed:

I love football, and I´m fit like a 26-year-old and fitter than when I was 30.

Yeah, why not. He has been Germany´s number 2 for what felt like ages why not playing a little further. He is 36 now, as is Oliver Kahn our former “Titan”. But as we all know there was a goalie who won the World Cup when he was 40 in 1982. Hm, Lehmann is 36 the next World Cup would be in 2010. You do the math.

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Did you know Mrs. Edwige Madze Badakou before? No? Me neither. She is from Togo and has been crowned Mrs. World Cup earlier this week. As one of her first duties she had to pose with a few World Cup(ish) beers in Düsseldorf. I don´t know why the whole world thinks Germany is all about beer and Lederhosen.

[photo via]

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It´s time for a new poll. Thanks to everyone who´s voted on the last one. We´ve seen a lot of Rooney voters, but obviously Shevchenko and Messi would be a great loss to the World Cup as well according to World Cup News Blog readers. But let´s check the results. Read more

23.11 MET - the Brazilian team has landed on Frankfurt International Airport. The defending champion is here and even more if you read through this 23-men-squad it sounds like a composition of semi-gods has arrived believe you me. They´ve just won their last test match against New Zealand 4-0 in the afternoon and now they´re smiling for the cameras. Business as usual. Read more

Call me crazy, but this little piece of math might turn out to be magic formula for Germany. Here we go. Multiply the first two years when Germany won the World Cup (without the 19 in the beginning) then substract the year of their last triumph.

Well, 54×74 = 3996 - 1990 = 2006 !

Shocked? Me too! [via]

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Uff, so much to catch up with today. Have you heard of the idea to make the World Cup a 2-year-deal? According to the Financial Times some of the influencial guys in Europe are thinking about that. To read the full story you´d have to subscribe over there but I´ve found a bit shorter a version of that text over at the blog of the Washington Post. Read more

Well, what have we learned from this weekend of friendlies? I´d like to look at it the german-way. Despite the fact that we here in Germany tend to look at our national team the negative way (result-wise) we´re confident that our team will survive the Group phase. But it could get harder as claimed often lately. Germany faces Costa Rica, Ecuador and Poland. And especially our neighbors seem to get better and better with their latest 1-0 victory over Croatia. Well, this wasn´t that good of a game but the result is what counts. By the way if you haven´t done so already check out the latest poll to your right. Read more